Speculative fiction short stories

There will surely be lots of differing opinions and suggestions on this.

Here's one, just to get things started.

Have you tried writing a short, simple synopsis of the story before you begin (just two or three paragraphs) listing the main character; his motivation and goal; the conflict/antagonist who keeps him from reaching his goal; and the final resolution? You could use a "beginning, middle, end" structure" to just block out the story. You wouldn't be trying to outline the story, just making a general roadmap of where you want to take the story.

If you're ending up with a fragment of a longer story you may have too big of an idea for a short story, or maybe too many characters--which in turn creates too many complications. Try to simplify the plot and/or number of characters. I recently wrote a short piece (not SF) where there was a very tight word limit; I ended up lopping off a couple of characters.

If this doesn't seem like something that would work for you, we can try again.

I've written two short stories and have another six or seven in mind, and they are all different in structure and vary in length (and that has a lot to do with the variance in structure). The only thing that seems to be consistent is that I try to make sure the reader sympathizes with the MC.

Since they can vary from 1000 to 20,000 words, the variety of structures you use is gonna be enormous. But, a story is a story. If you invite your friends over and are telling them a story, you start someplace and end somplace. You give them the interesting part. Peter went to the zoo, the chimp threw up on him, Peter decided to get his revenge, mayhem ensued, Peter got tossed out. What's the structure? Don't worry about the structure. If the story is interesting, it inherently has a structure.

I Don't think it makes much deferents what genre a short story is when it comes to structure .My first stab at a story I aim for a beginning,middle and resolve.The skill of short story writing is different from writing longer pieces .Every word needs to have some weight and move the story on. Write the best story you can using no more than 3000 words. Post it on this site .There are plenty of people here that will give you some advice.

a_morris said:

What sort of structure should a SF short story have? I find that I do better writing when I understand the underlying structure of a piece. That means understanding the basics before I try and break any rules.

Many of the times when I've tried to write a short story, I've ended up with the fragment of a longer piece instead.

I've had short fiction in general discribed to me as a snap shot. I can see how that could apply but it doesn't help me generate genre appropriate ideas for the form.

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Structure is no different in speculative fiction than it would be in any other genre.

And although there ARE rules for F/SF - rules that can be broken, with sufficient skill and need - rules won't help you create a story. They'll just show you things to avoid.

Generate the ideas first, then ask how you can express them.

But if you really want some rules-

Try this.

And try here.

And here.

And these examples.

Algis Budrys' Writing to the Point summarizes his seven-point plot skeleton, which is a useful checklist (I hesitate to call it a skeleton). Lemme see if I have a link around here...Ah. I blogged about it here: http://doc-lemming.livejournal.com/44991.html

And you can try the original excerpt (though I don't know how long it will last, Budrys being the late Budrys and all) here: http://www.webdreamer.com/algis_budrys_writing_part_one.html

John

I've never been a big fan of specific rules. Or a structure that stays constant from story to story. There is no rule out there that can't be broken. Some (No Deus Ex Machina. Beginning/Middle/End. The story should be in English.) are just harder to successfully break than others.

My advice is to track down and read lots of short stories. Find a couple stories you really, really like, and then try to figure out why you like them.

I'm working to figure stuff like that out myownself!

Interesting character has a problem or goal, overcoming problem causes or achieving goal involves obstacles or conflict.

Character overcomes at least two obstacles (in between them was a set-back or an increase in jeopardy or conflict) Some suggest three is a superiour number, but short stories need to be focused and succinct.

Victory or defeat.

Victory ends with character in a happymonkeycuddle with Megan Fox.

Defeat ends with Rod Serling breathing cigarette smoke and making some ironic quip at character's expense.

In the "Learn Writing with Uncle Jim" thread in the Novels forum, UJ has some interesting analogies about short stories vs. novels. The one I like is that a short story is a joke while a novel is a comedy routine.

I had never been able to write short pieces until I started working with some of the SF/F Challenge prompts in the SYW forum. The prompts are usually one word, so there's less scope to expand every which way. A short piece needs to be focused. One idea seen all the way through.

Repeat after me:

"Form follows function".

The shape of your story is dictated by the themes, goals, and sf-nal toys you bring to the story. Know your function. Then, you know your form.

I learned that it helps to iterate and expand a story's universe, in an attempt to seek out perhaps better ways of expressing an idea or a theme. Oftentimes, I found that my initial plan was not the most appropriate one and that I had found better ways of conveying the stuff in another manner or through some other story.

Actually, I'll go and make an example of Radioelf, a series of shorts I had written:

1) The original idea: ideal futuristic society where everything is neat and clean. Conflict arises from friction between megacorporations and protagonists work undercover to peacefully resolve these conflicts.

2) First iteration (NaNoWriMo 2007.) I write up a few chapters, one in particular that involves a protagonist briefly traveling several thousand years forward in time and seeing an almost singularized community of radioelves and computers.

3) Radioelf Release. I write up something that describes life after the technological singularity. I find that I like the style, the tone and the overall look and feel much more than my more traditional and first approach to Radioelf.

4) Radioelf Release becomes a series, as I begin to write more shorts based on the same idea. By now, I much prefer Release to the first iteration of Radioelf.

5) Revised idea: split the Radioelf verse into two parts, one of them being a small section that details life in a traditional manner with some social and political situations thrown in, and gradually introduces the reader to more esoteric lifestyles, to the point where things break down into a massive ignorance of the common laws of physics.

In truth, I think I've come to the conclusion that speculative fiction requires speculation at a technical level as well... that one's got to speculate on the speculation itself. In my case, I somewhat discovered the world I was imagining as I was writing it up.

Also, in the end, I realized that I was trying to do a novel when I in fact ended up with a number of slightly more self-contained shorts instead of chapters. I figure, that's how the story went in practice and I don't have any complaints about it. It wasn't on the original goal, but goals can be changed.

After you figure out how to write a short story, which IMO is trivial compared to a novel, you should read the shorts that pro markets actually publish. Likely, you'll discover they want a different sort of story than you write.

SPMiller said:

After you figure out how to write a short story, which IMO is trivial compared to a novel...

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I've written and sold both very long and very short and all sorts of in-between fiction to some not-unimpressive markets, and I would never, ever say that.

Short stories are hard. Novels are hard. They are about equal in difficulty.

It isn't a question of length of the fiction or the talent of the composer. It's because writing that pushes boundaries of good quality require you to push your own talent to the limits.

SPMiller said:

After you figure out how to write a short story, which IMO is trivial compared to a novel,

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Wish it was trivial for me. Novels are easy; short stories are HARD.

You have got to be joking. Short stories are short. Novels aren't. Writing high-quality, entertaining prose for twenty or thirty times longer is simply more difficult. If you don't hold both forms to the same standards of quality, u rnt doin it rite.

SPMiller, I'm not joking.

Condensing pacing and world-building and character down into a short space is actually just as difficult as any "longer" work.

Do not mistake duration for difficulty.

For me, few tasks are "difficult", so perhaps I should have used another word. I quantify most jobs in terms of how long they take in units time. As far as I'm concerned, I can turn out several good short stories in the time it takes to write one good novel (where "good" is defined as "to the best of my ability"). I don't think I can look at it any other way. Might be a personality flaw.

Might also be a semantic twist, from your description.